As a general thought, while grocery stores may not have been directly rail served, my home town had the classic brick grocery store right next to the tracks. The county seat had one location where the tracks ran between two grocery stores, one pretty much like the Red Owl kit while the other across the tracks was a classic early 60s stand alone market with a full set of windows across the front and metal false front. Of course those huge windows were worthless because they were always covered with hand lettered signs in butcher paper about the latest sale. But even more important in my opinion is a grocery can set both the era and location more strongly than many other items.
Until recently most grocery chains were relatively local. Winn Dixie for example says southeast. Harris Teeter puts you in the Carolinas. Community Cash -- upstate SC. And the style of the building sets the era -- grocery stores tried to remain current it seems to appeal to wives with money to spend.
Schools are another era setter. There seem to be basic school styles that are used around the country but only for a particular period. Schools built in the 50s/60s are very distinct from those just 10 years later.
Yes, that's very true of urban areas. But I'm talking about where I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine. Unless you made the trek up there back in the 40's or 50's, you've no idea what it was like. A county the size of the state of Massachusetts, but only about 65,000 people. Seperated from the central part of Maine by a 118 mile stretch of absolutely nothing but northern forest. The only access was by tortuous roads, which few people relished driving. The distribution centers for perishable food WAS up there in Presque Isle, so it all came up there by train back then. No, the rail spurs did not go up to the loading docks of the grocery stores. The only trucking of the food was from Presque Isle distribution center to the other valley towns. So, in that sense, the grocery stores (and just about all the other businesses up there) were served by rail, because they were dependant on the BAR to get the things up there so that they could be distributed by truck.
"I could never belong to any club that would have me as a member."
AVRNUTAnd yes, most things like groceries and hospitals are not rail-served............TODAY! However, if you're doing a transition era layout of the 40's/50's time frame, you have to completely re-think that.
However, if you're doing a transition era layout of the 40's/50's time frame, you have to completely re-think that.
With a very few rare (and HUGE) exceptions, hospitals were not directly rail-served (except for giant complexes that received coal for boilers) -- that's true for the '40s, '50s, or any time, I think.
And I can't remember seeing a single instance of an individual grocery store with direct rail service anywhere at any time.
Perishable foods were typically shipped by rail to large cold storage warehouses or produce terminals in the 1940s and '50s, and then trucked to individual stores or distribution warehouses.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
There are a lot of great kits out there. I think that Fine Scale Miniatures is the best. I agree that one can not find a kit for every structure that one can imagine, but scratch building will help. It is not as hard as it seems but then again I love doing it.
Craig North Carolina
I would agree that most train layouts, due to space limitations, are far more accomodating to small, trackside industry & structures and the kit manufacturers predominately stick to those types of buildings, as they are the biggest sellers & have the broadest appeal. And yes, most things like groceries and hospitals are not rail-served............TODAY!
However, if you're doing a transition era layout of the 40's/50's time frame, you have to completely re-think that. A far bigger percentage of businesses of all types WERE either directly or indirectly rail served back then. There was no interstate highway system then, providing high speed, limited access, direct routes across country. A much smaller percentage of goods were shipped cross country by truck. It took days & days of comparatively slow travel to go cross country by truck. There was no jet air service, either passenger or cargo either. And flying was something mainly confined to the wealthy. Air travel & air shipment, proportionately, was far more costly than it is today.
During that era, the quickest way to get your goods to where they were going was still by rail. Most things like groceries & other consumer goods WERE still shipped by rail, especially perishables. As a result, most business were served, directly or indirectly, by rail then. It was the building of the interstate highway system in the late 50's thru early 70's, along with the advent of jet air service in the 60's that was responsible for the demise of so many railroads.
So, my own humble opinion is that if you are doing a transition era layout, those ARE things you must keep in mind in planning your structures and trackside industries.
Yes, the market for large industries can't be very big. Most of us just don't have the physical space. So, the manufacturers stick to what sells - small structures that can find a home in any layout. They also concentrate, logically, on trackside buildings. Hospitals ang groceries typically wouldn't be rail-served, so their appeal to most of us is reduced.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Most of what I see on the HO Scale market nowadays are little industries that are too cute! Factories shouldn't look cute! Industries on my layout are modeled after interesting architecture from the prototype, not something that I made up. So in turn each industry has a different look to it. For my shelf layout, I would like to see more low relief track side industries that can handle several rail cars one time.
Model Power has some structures that provide a kitbashing basis for some the structures you seek. You have to be able to look beyond the thick windows and cheesy molded in colors to see the potential, and don't go by the name on the box -- take the Art Curren approach that a plastic kit is a bunch of parts and suggestions and that once you have a critical mass of kits then is the time to start Xeroxing the sides and ends and play around with some ideas for bashing them together.
A small school house might well be called a church or village hall on the box. For exampl, the Model Power town hall
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-400
is not a one room school but could be a small two or four room school such as one sees out in the country, or perhaps village hall on one side, school on the other.
I have to model a trackside liquor store on my layout -- it had two large windows (with inside paper signs covering them up advertising deals) and a covered "drive through" pick up area at the far end. It will do no good to type "liquor store" in the Walthers search engine but there are some stores and even "factories" that have the right heft and bulk.
The old fashioned brick hospital is not something I have thought about kitbashing myself but the Walthers YMCA and the Heljan synagogue both resemble some old hospitals I have seen. In my old home town the "hospital" was just a large and very substantial brick house, perhaps a rooming house, and after it ceased to be a hospital that is exactly what it became.
You didn't mention it, but the style of structure for car dealers -- lots of large windows, probably framed in aluminum, with a back area, is also what tire dealers tended to look like. In addition to cars being a common thread, tire dealers and car dealers both seemed to be the last bastion of the aluminum Christmas tree, with rotating color wheel.
Dave Nelson
Cedarwoodron:
I agree. I've looked at the Walthers Red Owl Grocery kit and while it is a neat looking building, it does not quite fit the mold of the average town grocery of the 40's/50's. They were, as you say, either free standing buildings or located on an end of some of the early strip malls. There were six such groceries in the Aroostook River Valley "triangle" in northern Maine, two in each of the three large towns. Fort Fairfield had a free standing, brick First National down at the eastern end of the main street, and a free standing, concrete block IGA on the on the hill on the south edge of town on Rt. 1A. Caribou had an A&P on the northern end of Sweeden St, the downtown district. It was free standing, red brick & had an arched/curved roof, much like an airplane hanger. (In fact, I've been thinking of using an airplane hanger kit to "kitbash" the building on my layout). The other was a free standing Shop & Save at the opposite end of the main drag. Presque Isle had a First National, downtown and attached to the same large building that housed the Sears Roebuck & Co. store. The other was at the opposite end of town. It was an IGA and was one end of a strip mall. The other key store at the other end was a large S.S.Kresge's store. All 6 of these stores had their own parking areas, just as you described.
None of these were anywhere near the size of the sprawling Supermarkets we have now, but were all far bigger than the Walther's Red Owl Kit depicts. Most of them would probably compare in square footage to the size of the average Walgreens or Rite Aid stores that we have today.
MisterBeasley The City Classics grocery store is one of my favorites:
The City Classics grocery store is one of my favorites:
I have one of these earmarked to become a bar in a trendier neighborhood (current day). I have an second one that's going to be sacrificed to become the first floor of a taller building, if I ever get around to it.
Some additional omissions:
1. Brick and limestone church buildings. City churches are built in brick and limestone; clapboard churches don't meet the building code.
2. Main Street stores with modernized fronts of enameled steel panels. This was a very common modernization in the 1950s and 1960s.
3. Pseudo Georgian or Colonial buildings. Many small town railroad stations were built in this style.
Ron High;
The Aroostook River Valley was once a beehive or railroad activity, mainly centered around Potatoe & Lumber cargos. You had the BAR's lines running through the county, The AVR's little 36 mile line and The CP had a spur line out of Canada that crossed the border into Fort Fairfield & went on to connect with the BAR lines in Caribou and Presque Isle. VERY active railroading area right up into the 1960's.
What spelled out their doom was in 1969-1970, when they finally extended Interstate I-95 north from Bangor up the 118 miles through the middle of nowhere to Houlton. It really killed the BAR's business. The AVR hung on until 1996, but could last no longer. The highway & trucking companies got all the cargo. Prior to that there were only 3 or 4 two-lane roads connecting Aroostook County with the rest of humanity and they were all notoriously bad roads to boot. The "Hainesville Woods" road was particularly brutal. It was ALWAYS in terrible condition, over 100 miles of nothing but forest, no houses, gas stations, towns, restaurants..........no nothing! Just you and the Moose that you frequently had to dodge. As a kid back in the 50's, I remember my dad cursing every mile of it whenever he had to drive it.
I'm not a Plasticville fan by any stretch of the imagination. Their stuff is okay for kids toys, but not really for me. I'm more interested in serious attention to authentic detail & realism. A structure with "Plasticville School, Plasticville Store, Plasticville Airport" etc, plastered all over it isn't my cup of tea. No offense, but my modeling tastes went way beyond that stage over half a century ago.
That was it! Freight Station! I couldn't think of the name for some reason, but kept thinking it was railroad related.
My oldest friend lives in Boothbay & he has always been a railroading nut too. He used to frequent the Bath Hobby Shop. We were talking about it recently & he said the guy eventually did find a buyer, a young guy with visions for the most well stocked HS on the planet. After buying the business he went totally hog-wild ordering stock & literally stocked himself out of business. Incurred so much debt, that he couldn't pay, that he was forced to liquidate the business. At least, that's what my buddy Earl told me.
Seeing as how this thread is wavering between Maine-style model railroading, and the OP about hard-to-find model structure types, I'll go contrarian and answer the OP:
1. Those of us that grew up in the transition era well remember the mid-size Grocery Stores that dotted the landscape of every town in America.
One word: Plasticville
2. Why does every manufacturer insist upon putting out a kit of "the little red one-room schoolhouse"? I
This one is a Plasticville Fail.
3. I can find virtually no kits of the typical mid-size town Hospital, yet most towns had one. In fact, except for a couple European versions, I can find no HO kits of any Hospitals.
4. Automobile Dealerships:
It`s nice to see some interest in the AVR I always thought it was an interesting road.My primary interest is NH and B&M in the late 1950s to 1960s. I bought 3 Bachmann units many years ago to someday try modeling it ,If I could find time and a little more space it would be fun. Got a few shots in wintertime in the early 1970s chased them 2 engines and 8 or 10 cars out to the interchange at Cairibou? Maybe it was Washburn.
There was a small article with photos ,I think in MR in the 1960s kind of a railroad you can model article . That is how I became aware of the AVR. I have had the Robertson book for years.
Ron High
AVRNUTThere was once a Hobby Shop in Lewiston (can't remember the name of it now), but it was fair.
Freight Station in Leweston closed some time ago, they still do local shows
AVRNUTused to be one in downtown Bath that was okay, but it's gone now too.
The Bath shop closed sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. Typical problem, he wanted to retire, but could not find a buyer...
I know Andover, one of my nieces and her husband live up that way. Site of one of the earliest satelite communication ground stations back in the early 60s.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Santa Fe:
Someone either is or was making a resin kit of a 41-46 Chevy Schoolbus. I'm sure I saw one on Ebay just a few weeks ago & was thinking that it would be good for my early/mid 50's layout time theme.
Hi MisterBeasley;
Yes, Im familiar with the "Maine Trains" you spoke of. They have a website I have visited and it's a "dot com" web address. However, there is also a Maine Trains website with a "dot net" address & think it is the same guy that operated here in Maine. I think he has moved to Mass & is currently operating out of a storage facility & taking orders online. At least that's the impression I get from what it says on the webpage. He seems to have a huge stock.
Here is the link:
http://www.mainetrains.net/
There is a healthy and thriving Maine Trains in Chelmsford, MA. It's not the same shop or owner as the former Maine Trains in Maine. They co-existed for a number of years.
Maine Trains in Chelmsford is a small but well-stocked brick-and-mortar shop, with some Internet presence. Gerry does mostly HO, with some N-gauge. He makes a point of stocking New England roads like the B&M and Maine Central. I've seen custom-painted GP9s for the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, since you're up that way.
I've been to the shop in Intervale. It was several years ago. I think the shop was full MSRP on everything. The model train museum is worth seeing once - it's mostly layouts that have been acquired or donated. Most have running trains, but they just run in loops at the push of a button. Check their hours and make sure the museum is open when you plan your trip.
Hi George;
I'm in Andover, Maine. Western mountains, northwest of Rumford, northeast of Bethel. I was aware of the one that was once in Phillips, but wasn't sure what happened there either. Maine Trains is still selling online, but according to the website is selling out of self storage bins somewhere down in Massachusetts. Haven't been down to Maine Modelworks yet, but I understand it is good. That's a good 90 miles south of us here.
There was once a Hobby Shop in Lewiston (can't remember the name of it now), but it was fair. Also used to be one in downtown Bath that was okay, but it's gone now too. A small one once in Rumford that had very limited stock, but it closed a few years back.
Oh, for the days of Woolworth's! Back in the 60's-70's, a lot of the Woolworth stores had surprisingly good & well stocked hobby departments, especially for trains. In the last few years Maine has become a LHS wasteland.
I suspect the order of popularity for structures runs something like this:
1. Railroad structures - depots, roundhouses, water towers, etc.
2. Railroad served structures - factories, coal yards, lumberyards, etc.
3. Downtown buildings near the station.
4. Small buildings such as houses, shops, and 1 room school houses
5. Everything else - hospitals, supermarkets, larger schools
Add to this the fact that most of us are really short on space especially for non-railroad stuff and you wind up with too little demand for hospitals, etc. Personally, I doubt that I'll have any of the 4 you listed because of a lack of space.
Kitbashing, parts building, or scratch building appear to be your best options.
Good luck
Paul
AVRNUTThere were once a bunch of them scattered about the state, but most are gone now. Nearest one in Maine is roughly 90 miles away & they are more into R/C stuff, but do have a train section.
That sounds like Ray & Robins Hobby??? If you go there, you are not far from Maine Modelworks located in Rte 1 in Falmouth. One of the best around, and trains onlyhttp://mainemodelworks.com/
Maine Trains in Kezar Falls closed last fall. Train & Trooper is in the process of moving from Phillips to Readfield, about 20 miles from Augusta. OOPs - I just checked his website, and the domain is up for sale - don't know whats going on there!!
There are a couple of shops located south of Porland, but I have not visited tham.
Highrailer has closed his storefront, and is doing only shows and direct internet saleshttp://www.highrailer.com/
Where ate you located??
We're having fun with it. Fortunately, my wife is also a model railroad enthusiast. She had an HO layout when she was a young girl. We're both approaching retirement, so we will gradually have more & more time to devote to it. Our main obstacle here is that Maine is now almost totally devoid of Hobby Shops. There were once a bunch of them scattered about the state, but most are gone now. Nearest one in Maine is roughly 90 miles away & they are more into R/C stuff, but do have a train section. There IS one in Intervale, NH about 65-70 miles from here that we are going to ride over to & check out soon. There is a Model Railroading Museum there & they have a full service Model Railroading Shop on site. My wife is a High School Teacher. This Thursday is the last day of school, so once she's done, we're going to drive over & see what they have that we can't live without.
I'll second that , very interesting prototype, should make for a very interesting railroad !
AVRNUT SNIP Thanks for the tip off on the new Walthers Car Dealership kit. That is VERY much like a Chevy/GMC dealership that once stood up in Caribou, Maine back in the 1950's. SNIP
SNIP
Thanks for the tip off on the new Walthers Car Dealership kit. That is VERY much like a Chevy/GMC dealership that once stood up in Caribou, Maine back in the 1950's.
Glad to help.
You do have a fascinating prototype in the AVR. I vaguely remember a trackplan from 30 or 40 years ago that depicted it and/or the BAR, which I found charming?? Already committed to Colorado NG, so not in my life time, but I think you've made an interesting choice.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Randy;
Blaine is just south of Mars Hill, going towards Houlton on Rt.1. Hope somebody will buy that Caboose & restore it before it rots beyond the point of no return.
We're still in the early construction stages of the layout. While it's going to be a pretty large one (20' x 12' x 9' outside dimensions, somewhat "J" shaped), I will have to compress somewhat to get all the elements I want. I will have one fair sized town area, incorporating the AVR yards. Would love to be able to scale all three major towns in the valley, Presque Isle, Caribou and Fort Fairfield, but I'll have to settle for having one major town on the layout. So, I'm taking a bit of license by incoporating elements from all three towns into the one. I want to leave room for the Aroostook County countryside, the AVR bridge over the Aroostook River & hopefully some representation of the Washburn interchange.
Spent much of my growing up in Fort Fairfield, out on the Center Limestone Road. My family had several Potato Farms out there. My grandfather also had a camp up on Mud Lake, near Sinclair. Going to try to incorporate those elements in the layout too.